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Saturday, December 23, 2006

Diagnosis-Unknown; Prescription-Santa

Post Description: This post describes one of Dear Son’s long hospitalization’s over the Christmas holiday and how the arrival of Santa lifted his spirits.

It was 2004 and we had been in the hospital for over two weeks, when Christmas arrived. Dear Son, had been hospitalized nine times this year and this hospitalization was by far, the most intense. Dear Son had been vomiting on and off for months and was losing weight quite rapidly now with no resolution in sight. The neurosurgeon had just implanted his Vagus Nerve Stimulator just days ago and Dear Son was still recovering. Specialty after specialty had entered the room, only to leave us without any answers. Dear Son had been sleeping most of the time now, too weak to do much else. I was beginning to get very worried since no one seemed to have any answers.

I called my church at 8 a.m. on Christmas morning. I am crying and I ask them to pray for him. I am hoping for a Christmas miracle of sorts, that they find out what’s causing his vomiting, so they can get it resolved and we can go home. I look over at Dear Son and his tiny, frail body is resting peacefully on his side, in the hospital bed. This was not the way I had hoped to spend our Christmas.

Suddenly, Dear Son’s eyes popped open as something caught his attention in the hallway. His eyes grew very large and I peeked over his bed to see what was the matter. I looked out in the hallway and saw nothing, I looked over the nursing station and still couldn’t see anything. And then, in the far hallway near the children’s rooms on the other side, I saw him. He was big and fat and wore a red and white suit. He had a giant sleigh full of Christmas presents and several elves helping him out. Dear Son’s eyes were so big, I thought they were going to burst! He watched intently as Santa moved about across the hall. And then the bells started. Santa started ringing his bells to let the children know that he had arrived. I looked over at Dear Son and a huge smile came across his face. Santa, the big guy had indeed arrived.

I laughed to myself at the wonder of it all. Soon Santa arrived at Dear Son’s room. He brought in bag after bag of presents for Dear Son. I was amazed at the enormity of it all. It was truly a wonderful event.

Dear Son had his picture taken with Santa and it did more for his morale than anything the physicians or I could have done. Santa left the room and soon we saw him on our local news. Apparently, Santa had arrived at the hospital using the Big Academic Medical Center’s helicopter. They showed him arriving at the hospital on the roof.

We would spend another two weeks in the hospital after that. That visit would forever change how I view the holidays. So often we forget, about the children who will spending Christmas in the hospital. Some day, when my days caring for Dear Son are complete, I’ll look forward to giving back, and making Chirstmas special for some other children. In the meantime, I’ll say a prayer, that they’ll all be home soon.